MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

4/10 Cubs give back to community

The Cubs joined the Robert R. McCormick Foundation on Tuesday to announce more than $1 million in grants to non-profit organizations serving those in need in the Chicago area. This is the eighth consecutive year more than $1 million has been donated through Cubs Care, a McCormick Foundation Fund.

“Today’s Cubs Care grant luncheon is about empowering non-profit organizations in Chicago and providing the necessary resources to help communities in need,” said Cubs owner and board member Laura Ricketts, who serves as chair of the board of Chicago Cubs Charities. “We’re proud to once again give more than $1 million to further these organizations’ missions through Cubs Care and Chicago Cubs Charities. We thank our fans for generously supporting the community events that make these donations possible.”

The 2012 grants include the Chicago Park District to provide funding for more than 13,000 low-income and special needs youth to play baseball this summer. A donation also was made to the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago to provide access to adaptive sports and wheelchair softball for nearly 1,500 individuals with physical disabilities. A contribution was made to the Chicago Public Library Foundation to support the Family Summer Reading program, a high-impact summer reading initiative which aims to keep 50,000 Chicago children reading and learning over the summer.

Through Cubs Care, more than $17 million has been donated to Chicago non-profit organizations since 1991.

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